1) Donald Trump plans to shut down his charitable foundation, which has been under scrutiny for months by Mark Berman and David A. Fahrenthold (December 24, 2016)
Trump's foundation has admitted in IRS tax filings for 2015 that it violated a prohibition against “self-dealing” that says nonprofit leaders cannot use their charity's funds to help themselves, their relatives or their businesses. In these tax filings, the charity checked “yes” in response to a question asking whether it had transferred any income or assets to “a disqualified person” — a description that could have meant Trump, a relative or a Trump-owned business.
2) Trump’s pick for attorney general is shadowed by race and history by Ellen Nakashima and Sari Horwitz (December 24, 2016)
At a 2006 congressional hearing, [Jeff] Sessions said that an entire group of people wouldn’t thrive in America. “Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming because they have a skill that would benefit us and would indicate their likely success in our society,” he said.
In 2009, he voted against a hate crimes bill named after Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming student murdered in 1998, that extended federal hate crime protections to people victimized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
As state attorney general in 1995, he argued against a decision by the Alabama Circuit Court to order the state to remedy funding inequities between the poorest school districts, which were heavily black, and their wealthiest, which were predominantly white. He did so on the grounds that taxing and spending power lay with the legislature, not the courts.
3) How Indiana’s school voucher program soared, and what it says about education in the Trump era by Emma Brown and Mandy McLaren (December 26, 2016)
Indiana lawmakers originally promoted the state’s school voucher program as a way to make good on America’s promise of equal opportunity, offering children from poor and lower-middle-class families an escape from public schools that failed to meet their needs.
Indiana lawmakers originally promoted the state’s school voucher program as a way to make good on America’s promise of equal opportunity, offering children from poor and lower-middle-class families an escape from public schools that failed to meet their needs.
But five years after the program was established, more than half of the state’s voucher recipients have never attended Indiana public schools, meaning that taxpayers are now covering private and religious school tuition for children whose parents had previously footed that bill. Many vouchers also are going to wealthier families, those earning up to $90,000 for a household of four.
The voucher program, one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing, serves more than 32,000 children and provides an early glimpse of what education policy could look like in Donald Trump’s presidency.
4) Trump Hotels has had its eye on China — but the door hasn’t opened by Simon Denyer and Jonathan O'Connell (December 26, 2016)
Donald Trump calls China an “enemy” of the United States, a threat and an international pariah whose modus operandi is to lie, cheat and steal — but for at least eight years his hotel chain has been trying to do business here.
Although negotiations have yet to bear fruit, Trump Hotels has made confident predictions this year about opening 20 or 30 luxury hotels in China. It is an ambition that would involve the company in direct negotiations with a Communist Party that the president-elect professes to fundamentally distrust.
On Dec. 12, Trump tweeted that he would do “no new deals” during his time in the White House. It is not clear what that means for Trump Hotels as a company, and both the Trump Organization and the Trump transition team declined to comment for this article.
5) Trump takes a step toward integrity by Editorial Board (December 27, 2016)
In fact, as The Post has reported this year, Mr. Trump apparently used the charity’s money to settle lawsuits involving his for-profit businesses. The New York probe is reportedly examining whether Mr. Trump violated a “self-dealing” provision that says nonprofit leaders cannot use their charity’s funds to help themselves, their relatives or their businesses. The Post also reported that, while the foundation did give money to charities and spent little on overhead, some of the expenditures were on rather dubious items, such as a $25,000 gift in 2013 to a campaign committee backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) at a time when her office was considering whether to investigate fraud charges against Trump University. Although she never pursued the probe, and a consultant has said Ms. Bondi did not know about it when she solicited the gift, the payout looks questionable. So does the $30,000 spent by the foundation to buy two large portraits of Mr. Trump, and the $258,000 in foundation money used to settle lawsuits involving two of Mr. Trump’s for-profit businesses.
6) As Trump prepares his kissy face for Putin, a glimpse into the dictator’s soul by Dana Milbank (December 27, 2016)
Now it’s Donald Trump’s turn for kissy-face, and the president-elect is practically groping the Russian dictator. After Putin gloated Friday that Democrats need to learn “to lose with dignity,” Trump tweeted Putin a sloppy kiss: “So true!” he said of Putin’s comments.
Trump also celebrated a letter he received from Putin calling for more collaboration between the two countries. “His thoughts are so correct,” Trump said.
Trump’s blush-inducing embrace of the strongman has included repeated praise of Putin’s leadership, deflected questions about Putin’s political killings and disparagement of U.S. intelligence for accusing Russia of election meddling.
7) More signs that Trump is out of touch with reality by Jennifer Rubin (December 28, 2016)
There you have it, once again: A man whose ego is so frail that he, like the rooster taking credit for the rising sun, sees all good news as a reflection of his own fabulousness. James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute is quoted in Politico as saying, “The president-elect judges his own personal wealth based on his own feelings. So on any given day, he could just decide based on his feelings that America is great.” (The first sentence is a reference to Trump’s own testimony in a 2007 deposition in which he asserted, “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”)
The narcissistic personality is ever-present. Every person is judged to be a “good guy” or a “loser” based on what he or she says about Trump. Every bad bit of news is the result of the no-good, sleazy, rotten, most-dishonest-people-he-ever-met media. Terrorist massacres are not tragedies, but vindication that he was “right” (right about exactly what is not clear). Trump’s seeming inability to take himself out of the equation and assess events, people and policies on their own merits remains the most frightening aspect of his impending presidency. He’d rather ignore a direct attack on American democracy than admit that Russia put its thumb on the scale in his election victory. His psychological need for affirmation, for love even, takes precedence over reality and the needs of the country.
The voucher program, one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing, serves more than 32,000 children and provides an early glimpse of what education policy could look like in Donald Trump’s presidency.
4) Trump Hotels has had its eye on China — but the door hasn’t opened by Simon Denyer and Jonathan O'Connell (December 26, 2016)
Donald Trump calls China an “enemy” of the United States, a threat and an international pariah whose modus operandi is to lie, cheat and steal — but for at least eight years his hotel chain has been trying to do business here.
Although negotiations have yet to bear fruit, Trump Hotels has made confident predictions this year about opening 20 or 30 luxury hotels in China. It is an ambition that would involve the company in direct negotiations with a Communist Party that the president-elect professes to fundamentally distrust.
On Dec. 12, Trump tweeted that he would do “no new deals” during his time in the White House. It is not clear what that means for Trump Hotels as a company, and both the Trump Organization and the Trump transition team declined to comment for this article.
5) Trump takes a step toward integrity by Editorial Board (December 27, 2016)
In fact, as The Post has reported this year, Mr. Trump apparently used the charity’s money to settle lawsuits involving his for-profit businesses. The New York probe is reportedly examining whether Mr. Trump violated a “self-dealing” provision that says nonprofit leaders cannot use their charity’s funds to help themselves, their relatives or their businesses. The Post also reported that, while the foundation did give money to charities and spent little on overhead, some of the expenditures were on rather dubious items, such as a $25,000 gift in 2013 to a campaign committee backing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) at a time when her office was considering whether to investigate fraud charges against Trump University. Although she never pursued the probe, and a consultant has said Ms. Bondi did not know about it when she solicited the gift, the payout looks questionable. So does the $30,000 spent by the foundation to buy two large portraits of Mr. Trump, and the $258,000 in foundation money used to settle lawsuits involving two of Mr. Trump’s for-profit businesses.
6) As Trump prepares his kissy face for Putin, a glimpse into the dictator’s soul by Dana Milbank (December 27, 2016)
Now it’s Donald Trump’s turn for kissy-face, and the president-elect is practically groping the Russian dictator. After Putin gloated Friday that Democrats need to learn “to lose with dignity,” Trump tweeted Putin a sloppy kiss: “So true!” he said of Putin’s comments.
Trump also celebrated a letter he received from Putin calling for more collaboration between the two countries. “His thoughts are so correct,” Trump said.
Trump’s blush-inducing embrace of the strongman has included repeated praise of Putin’s leadership, deflected questions about Putin’s political killings and disparagement of U.S. intelligence for accusing Russia of election meddling.
7) More signs that Trump is out of touch with reality by Jennifer Rubin (December 28, 2016)
There you have it, once again: A man whose ego is so frail that he, like the rooster taking credit for the rising sun, sees all good news as a reflection of his own fabulousness. James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute is quoted in Politico as saying, “The president-elect judges his own personal wealth based on his own feelings. So on any given day, he could just decide based on his feelings that America is great.” (The first sentence is a reference to Trump’s own testimony in a 2007 deposition in which he asserted, “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”)
The narcissistic personality is ever-present. Every person is judged to be a “good guy” or a “loser” based on what he or she says about Trump. Every bad bit of news is the result of the no-good, sleazy, rotten, most-dishonest-people-he-ever-met media. Terrorist massacres are not tragedies, but vindication that he was “right” (right about exactly what is not clear). Trump’s seeming inability to take himself out of the equation and assess events, people and policies on their own merits remains the most frightening aspect of his impending presidency. He’d rather ignore a direct attack on American democracy than admit that Russia put its thumb on the scale in his election victory. His psychological need for affirmation, for love even, takes precedence over reality and the needs of the country.
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